Red Pepper Cupcakes with White Chocolate Icing

Completed cupcake

It's been a while since I've had a new food-related project. A recipe that involves lots of steps, some obscure ingredients and appliances like the juice extractor and dehydrator. I don't think I've even used my juice extractor since I moved to Chicago last summer. It was time.

I recently picked up Amanda Cohen et al.'s Dirt Candy, a unique cookbook from their restaurant. It's unique in a couple respects. First, it's my only cookbook in comic book form. It tells the story of their restaurant and provides recipes in an entertaining, quirky, graphic style that's a lot of fun. Second, it's a vegetarian cookbook that uses lots of fresh ingredients and flavors, while also using innovative techniques from the molecular gastronomy movement. It provides recipes for things that look like food, but prepared creatively and in interesting ways. It's a way to cook interesting food that doesn't feel like it came from a chemistry lab.

Making red pepper jam.

These cupcakes are my first project from this book, and "project" is the apt term. I didn't follow the recipe perfectly, but I came close. My only points of deviation were making cupcakes instead of a layer cake, and not serving them with ice cream and other recommended accompaniments.

The idea for these apparently comes from traditional red velvet cake, but the resemblance stops with the color. For starters, they're not even that red. Second, they're flavored and colored with, well, red bell peppers. And third, they have a white chocolate icing.

Grinding dehydrated pulp into powder

How do you color and flavor a cake with red bell peppers? It's a fair question, and there are several steps involved because the red peppers are transformed into many different creations. It starts with the purchase of a couple pounds of red peppers. About half of these get turned into a homemade red pepper jam (diced peppers cooked in pepper juice with some sugar, then pureed). The rest get turned into red pepper juice, which is reduced substantially to thicken it. And the pulp from the juice extractor is dehydrated and ground into a powder. All pretty clever, right?

So then you prepare a fairly typical cake batter, but the with red pepper powder mixed in with the butter and sugar, and some thickened red pepper juice mixed in with the wet ingredients (buttermilk in this case).

The icing is then made from melted white chocolate that gets beaten into a butter/cream cheese blend along with some confectioner's sugar. I added some lime extract for good measure.

To finish the cupcakes, I spread some red pepper jam on the top of each cupcake (instead of between the layers, as recommended in the book), and icing on top of that. The outcome? Tasty. Definite taste of red pepper. Moist cake. Creamy icing. Not the best thing ever and I might not make them again given the effort. But unique and well worth a try!  I'll foist them on some

Coconut Lime Pandan Cookies

Finished cookies before glazing

It's been a while since I've posted because I haven't felt there's been much interesting to share. Mostly that's my fault. I've been making food, sure. But mostly from recipes and without a lot of creativity. More macarons. Some cookies. Blah blah. Tasty, but not very interesting to all of you. I decided to start  having more fun with food this weekend.

Oddly, my initial ideas for a project had nothing to do with any of the ingredients in the title of this post.  I've been meaning to do a green mango pie for a while, so thought I might try that. Or maybe a tart or layer cake, which are also things I've been meaning to do more of. So how did I get to these cookies?

Eggs and pandan paste

Part of it was just trying to use what I've got around. I bought a ton of limes last week for some reason, so needed to use those up. My usual way to use up limes is to make cornmeal-lime cookies from the Flour cookbook, but my motivation in the first place was to do something more original this weekend. I also have a ton of dried coconut powder around (as one does), and brought back some pandan paste from my December trip to Singapore. (As a reminder, here's a previous post about pandan leaves, from which pandan paste is derived)

So with all of that in mind, I decided to try to mix a couple recipes together and see what happened. In the Sweet Spot, Pichet Ong often uses the trick of substituting some toasted coconut powder for flour in his cookies and brownies (which is why I have all that coconut powder). So I decided to substitute toasted coconut powder for the cornmeal in the cookies, but use the ratio of butter-sugar-flour-coconut that Ong uses, rather than 1 for 1 subsitution.

Green dough/batter

The original cookie recipe also calls for a teaspoon of vanilla extract. I used the pandan in place of that. It looked bizarre in the bowl with the eggs (see photo) and gives the cookies an odd green hue, but I figure that makes them a little more interesting. I also added sweetened shredded coconut to the glaze, instead of the lime zest that's called for.

The result is pretty tasty. The pandan and lime play off of each other very nicely. The coconut flavor is probably too subtle, but the sweetened coconut in the glaze accentuates it nicely. If I made them again, I might work on ways to increase the presence of coconut. I might also use a bit less baking powder, because these really puffed up a lot.

Here's the recipe:

1 cup unsweetened dried coconut powder
1/2 tsp salt
1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter
finely grated zest of 4 limes
2 eggs
1 tsp pandan paste
2 cups (280 g) all-purpose flour
2 tsp baking powder

1. Pre-heat the oven to 350. Spread the coconut powder evenly on a baking sheet and toast it in the oven until it is golden brown and fragrant, 7 mins or so. Let cool completely.

2. Put the toasted coconut, sugar, butter and salt together in a stand mixer with paddle attachment and cream until light and fluffy (5 min or so).

3. Add the lime zest. Beat for 1 minute or so.

4. Add the eggs and pandan paste, and beat for another 2-3 minutes. Scrape down the sides to ensure even mixing.

5. Mix the flour and baking powder in a bowl. Add these slowly to the mixer while beating slowly.

6. Drop the cookies onto a lined (parchment or Silpat) baking sheet and bake 20 minutes or until golden brown around the edges. Cool on a wire rack, and glaze after 10-15 mins.


Glaze
1 cup confectioners sugar
2 tsp water
2 TBSP fresh lime juice
2 tsp sweetened grated coconut

Mix all together, then brush onto cookies.

Eating in Singapore and Bali

Happy holidays and happy new year, dear reader!  I hope the season has treated you all well, however you chose to spend it. I've had the delightfully good fortune of spending the past couple weeks in southeast Asia, mostly with my sister Melanie's family in Singapore. While Singapore is a (_very_) long way to travel to see my favorite niece, it's also an amazing place to eat. I've discussed this on Pearwise before.

While I'm told Singapore has a great and interesting top-end restaurant scene, my favorite thing to do here is eat in small, local restaurants and hawker centers. I've eaten local food nearly every day since arriving here, and will share a few of my favorites with you here.

Murtabak and curry gravy

On the first day (before Melanie got back from a separate vacation), I went to a little Malaysian restaurant nearby that serves great murtabak. This is a fried pancake that's stuffed with mutton (or other meat options) cooked with garlic and onions. It's served with a curry gravy (much like a sambhar) and some sliced cucumbers. I like to dip bits of the pancake into the gravy or sometimes pour a little on top of each bite. It is extremely unhealthy and extraordinarily delicious.

Idlis, chutneys and dhal

Another favorite treat not local to Singapore, but entirely appropriate for the Little India neighborhood where Melanie et al. live is idlis and dosas. Our favorite spot for these is the Murugan idli shop (which is apparently a chain). Idlis are steamed pancakes made from a fermented batter of rice flour (of a particular type) and lentil flour. Dosas, as you may know, are very large, flat crepe-like pancakes made from a similar batter that are wrapped around a filling. At Murugan, these are served on a banana leaf with several types of chutney (here there's coconut, tomato, coriander and mint), and a bowl of dhal. You only pay for the pancake items. They will keep refilling the chutneys and dhal as long as you're sitting there. Idlis have a wonderful spongy texture that sops up the chutneys and a pleasant, slightly sour taste. I'd actually really like to make these myself, so I bought an idli steaming pan and you should watch for a post on my experience. And if you happen to be from South India, I welcome your advice.

Chili Crab

We did have one higher-end meal in terms of price, though it was a pretty simple dish. Singapore is known for chilli crab, a dish in which crabs are stir-fried in a sweet and spicy tomato-based sauce. As with other large shellfish, it's a lot of effort and a fairly messy endeavor, but the meat is tender and the sauce is delicious! The crab was served with some fried buns that were also pretty tasty, and we also had a mango salad with duck and some fried rice.

Seafood dish

Another highlight was when my friend Jude took me to a great little place just outside Chinatown where we had various wok-cooked specialties that I loved eating, but confess that I left ordering in Jude's able hands and don't recall the details. Among other things, we had some sort of wok-fried wide noodle dish and a seafood stew of sorts in a thickened sauce.

Eating prawn mee at the Old Airport
Road Hawker Centre

Plus Melanie and I went to the famous Old Airport Road Hawker Centre. There, we tried several recommended dishes including prawn mee (thin yellow noodles in a rich broth with prawns); char kway teow (fried rice noodles in a spicy brown sauce with Chinese sausage, vegetables, crispy bits of lard and fishcake); chee cheong fun (a large filled rice noodle roll covered in sweet soy sauce), and a curry puff (spicy curry encased in a puff pastry shell and deep fried). This was not a meal recommended by cardiologists, but seriously delicious.

Tropical fruits in Bali

There were many more highlights, of course. Fabulous fresh tropical fruits like mangosteens, tamarillos, soursop, mangoes, rambutans and passionfruit.  A weekend in Bali with plenty of satay, nasi goreng and nasi campur. Soup dumplings at Din Tai Fung. Laksa and otah at 328 Katong. So very much tastiness.

I also picked up a really nice Peranakan cookbook, so stay tuned for some posts on my experiences trying to recreate some of these dishes in Chicago!

Oatmeal Raisin Ice Cream

I've said this here before, but one of my favorite things about food is that the possibilities of what you can do with it are virtually limitless. We are mostly constrained by tradition and lack of imagination; and it can be fun to play with people's expectations. Ice cream can be a great way to do this because it is such a tasty canvas, and people's expectations are so often constrained by what's commercially available.

That's what excited me about David Lebovitz's recipe for oatmeal raisin ice cream. I had never had or heard of oatmeal raisin ice cream. Have you? Surely you've eaten cookies by that name; but probably not ice cream. This recipe takes the cookie as its inspiration and aims to replicate the experience in oatmeal form. This, as you might imagine, is not without challenges.

The first challenge is how to get oatmeal into ice cream. Simply tossing some raw oats into a custard base is probably not the tastiest way to do this, except perhaps if one is making ice cream for horses (who eat raw oats). Lebovitz solves this problem by making an "oatmeal praline" (he actually uses "praline" as a verb, but I didn't have the heart to do that). To do this, toast some rolled oats on a baking sheet in the oven while simultaneously melting some sugar in a large skillet on the stove. Once the oats are brown and fragrant, mix them into the just-caramelized sugar. Then pour this mixture onto a silpat-lined baking sheet to harden. Once hardened, break into small bits in the food processor. Ok, problem one solved.

The second challenge is the raisins. Dumped right into the ice cream they'd freeze and be hard little bug-like rocks. The solution: moisten them with syrup, and keep them soft with alcohol. The raisins get gently cooked in a sugar syrup, to which a couple tablespoons of whiskey are added at the end of the cooking. The raisins absorb the syrup and whiskey, so they are plump and sweet; and they stay soft and chewy in the freezer.


Finally, the ice cream itself. For this, Lebovitz uses a standard egg yolk custard, but it's sweetened mostly with brown sugar for color and a deeper flavor. A healthy dose of cinnamon is added as well, which you can see speckled in the mix.

This custard is then frozen in the ice cream maker, with the oatmeal praline and raisins tossed in just as it solidifies. A delicious treat!

In other news, I'm back in Singapore...so stay tuned for some Asian photos and treats!

Making Macarons: A Healthy Dose of Humility

Imperfect macarons.

For those at least as obsessed with baked goods as I am, there comes a time when certain treats known to be difficult are too tempting not to try. Stuff like croissants, puff pastry and yes, macarons. It happens that many of these things are French. This is somehow unsurprising.

First, however, a quick and critical point of distinction that is echoed in virtually every English-language recipe for macarons I've ever seen. In a nutshell (no pun intended), these are not even close to the same thing as coconut macaroons (of the sort commonly seen in the US on Passover). Rather, these macarons are shells made from almond meal (yes, that's why it was a pun), egg whites, and sugar, that are then filled with richly flavored buttercream. When done well, they are sublime in a way the coconut counterpart can only dream of.

Ok, back to my story about trying difficult things. Every recipe for macarons notes that they are finicky and difficult. There are multiple web pages dedicated to macaron troubleshooting, and multiple videos. You can't whip the eggs so much that they dry out, or so little that they won't provide structure. You need to be sure the almonds are ground extremely fine, but can't run the food processor so long that they become a paste. You have to use egg whites, but they can't be fresh...you need to let them dry out a bit on the counter. And macarons are created by squeezing the batter from a pastry bag, preferably in perfectly round little formations that hold together, but don't have an obvious little pointy bit from the pastry bag tip. Plus they should be colored, but you can't use more than a couple drops of liquid food coloring. Obscure powdered colorings are the preferred strategy.

Dry ingredients.

Once they emerge from the oven, moreover, everybody can tell if you did it correctly or not. Did they puff up? Hopefully. Did they crack? Hopefully not. Are the bottoms perfectly flat? Hopefully. Did they turn brown? Hopefully not. Did they develop 'feet'? Hopefully. And are they perfectly round, shiny, smooth and free of blemishes? They better be!

Despite all of these very good reasons not to attempt macarons as a project, I got a new cookbook a few weeks ago (Sugar Baby by Gesine Bullock-Prado) that had an entirely too tempting recipe. So I decided to try them.

The first step was a shopping trip, as her recipe calls for "egg white powder." I had never heard of these, but was happily able to find some at Treasure Island. Then I needed almond meal, which it turns out Trader Joe's has at about half the price of similar products elsewhere. Oh, and I had to "age" my egg whites by leaving them on the counter for a few hours. Ok, all set to go.

Waiting for sugar to heat up.

The first step was to get all of the dry ingredients together (210 g almond meal, 200 g confectioners sugar and 14 g egg white powder) in the food processor and process until very fine, but not too long.

Next I put 3 "aged" egg whites and 3g of salt in my stand mixer, with the whisk attachment, to get them ready.

I then put 200 g of sugar and 1/4 cup water in a saucepan, stirring until the sugar dissolved and then heating until it reaches 240 F.

A few of my favorites.

Prior to this, though, I had started the egg whites beating when the sugar reached 210 F. This was just to get them foamy and ready for the sugar mixture, which got poured into the egg whites slowly down the side of the bowl (so the eggs don't scramble from direct heat) with the motor running at low speed. Once incorporated, I increased the mixer speed to high and let the egg whites beat until they held soft peaks.

Cracked macaron

Ok, now back to the dry ingredients. I first mixed 1/4 cup of water into these to form a paste (apparently this type of paste is good, though almond paste is not), into which the egg white mixture is then gently folded. They need to be combined until there are no more white streaks, but not over-mixed.

I then put this mix into my pastry bag, and piped it onto baking sheets covered with silicone mats, and baked for about 35 minutes at 275 F.

As you can see in the photos, a few of them came out nicely. They had feet! The tops were rounded! They were puffy and had flat bottoms!  But many did not. They cracked and/or had cratered bottoms, and didn't get very puffy.

Lime buttercream.

I did some troubleshooting to find out what I had done wrong. According to one web site that seemed possibly helpful, cracks are an indicator that your macarons have been mixed too much. Or that they have not been mixed enough. Thanks...  They still taste good, though.

And to fill them I made my first Italian-style butter cream made with egg whites and flavored with lime zest and lime juice.

They're pretty tasty. I'm thinking I'd like to try them again to see if I can get better results. Stay tuned!

Sandwich Making

A point of pride for me is that I have brought my own lunch to work or school virtually every day for my entire life (exceptions: four years of dorm food during undergrad, days when I have social plans at a venue where it would be inappropriate to bring my own food, events when food is provided, extenuating circumstances*). There are a variety of reasons for this. Partly it's to save money. Partly it's because the food I make can be healthful if I want. And partly it's because I've worked in several places where I can make better stuff than what's readily available (downtown Toronto being a notable exception).

Another point of pride is that I try to keep my lunches interesting, even though I'm mostly just eating sandwiches every day. And usually the same sandwich repeated for several days. As I've said here before, this means they've gotta be tasty so I don't get sick of them.

What I've decided to do this week is share some of my sandwich making tips and creations.

First, bread. Bread is critical. That's why I've written 'bread' three times to open this paragraph. I personally find that baguettes are fabulous for just about any sandwich, and they can be easily kept in the freezer (sliced into thirds) to be reheated. The key, though, is to find interesting bread that will not just contain your sandwich, but also enhance it...and not get too soggy in the process. If you don't go with the baguette, find something that's thickly sliced (or that you can slice yourself) and has some flavor to it.

Second, interesting fillings. Boring fillings make boring sandwiches, even in great bread. And boring sandwiches make boring lunches (aside: boring lunches, of course, are what well drillers eat...). The key to interesting sandwich fillings is to always have a few ingredients in your sandwich, and to always keep some interesting condiments around. It's also nice to have some sandwiches where you can prepare a filling in advance for several sandwiches. Here are some of my favorites, ranging from easy to more time consuming:

Easy to shop for and assemble:

• sliced brie, cucumber, tomato and black pepper (best on a hard roll or baguette; assemble with tomatoes in the middle and cucumbers on top to minimize tomato-related bread sogginess)
• sliced avocado, red pepper, sprouts, chili paste (great on thick multi-grain bread and enhanced by a bit of cream cheese
• hommus, tomatoes, cucumbers, sprouts (possibly with some carrots)
• salami, some sort of hard white cheese, arugula, onion jam (or mustard)
• prosciutto, sliced apples or pears, some sort of hard white cheese

Require a little bit of prep:

• sliced turkey (well worth going to Whole Foods to get the freshly roasted stuff, or roast your own), chipotle mayo (make in blender with 6 tbsp mayo, 1 whole chipotle pepper (canned), juice from 1 lime), lettuce, tomato
• smoked salmon, red onion and wasabi cream cheese (mix some wasabi paste with cream cheese and store in the fridge)
• curried chicken salad (cook and dice 1 lb of chicken breasts, toss with sliced green onions and maybe some mango, dress with a mix of yogurt, mayo and curry paste from a jar)
• roasted veggies and apples: slice an onion, a red pepper, an apple, and some mushrooms. Toss with some butter or oil and sprinkle with salt/pepper. Roast at 375 for 20 mins or so. When done, place some of this mixture on bread with some greens and maybe some sort of aged cheese. The veggies are great cold. Endless substitutions are possible.
• roasted eggplant and goat cheese: Slice up an eggplant and roast it at 375-400 after brushing with oil. Put on bread with a good chevre and some greens.
• tofu salads: Moosewood New Classics has a couple of these themed Italian and Thai. They basically involve crumbling some tofu, tossing it with some veggies, and then dressing it with a theme-appropriate dressing.
• Spanish tortilla: Make your favorite Spanish Tortilla recipe (this is a fritata with potatoes and onions) and then slice it up. This one is best on a hard roll or baguette, and is surprisingly delicious cold. My favorite recipe is in Mark Bittman's How to Cook Everything.

I'll add more as I think of them (I'm sure I've made others), but this is a good start. 

Third is assembly, which is more important than you think. I've added some assembly tips for a few of these where it matters even more. I find that assembling my sandwich in the morning works best, and always try to do so in a manner that minimizes the likelihood of soggy bread or otherwise befouled ingredients. I then wrap it tightly in plastic wrap to hold it all together.

Finally, my main point here is that if you've got a bunch of ideas that are easy to shop for, it's easy to eat tasty stuff all the time. I'd also love to hear about others' favorite sandwiches. That could be a whole separate blog. You can also take some pleasure in recalling that Arthur Dent (from The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy) took pride in his career as a sandwich maker when he gets uprooted and finds himself on Lamuella.

* Those who have known me a very long time may note that an extended extenuating circumstance was the entirety of first grade (translation for Canadians: grade one), during which I did not eat lunch in school at all, ever. My mom did, however, make lunch for me every day...so technically I did bring it. I don't actually remember why I didn't eat my lunch at school, but finally deciding to do so resulted in my getting a Hot Wheels race track, so I consider the whole episode a win. (I have a history of being a bit stubborn about doing mundane things; this is a topic for another entry...or therapy.)

Brioche is Challah With Lots of Butter

I've been intrigued by brioche for a while, particularly as it has made its way onto hipster menus over the past few years as a vehicle for grilled cheese sandwiches and french toast. These are all delicious, but also have a bit of a decadence to them. Curiosity point 1: I wanted to know what went into brioche.

Another point of intrigue was the apparent similarity to challah. Both are egg breads. Both are sweet and taste a bit like cake. Both can be made with raisins for special occasions (with challah this is called "round challah for Rosh Hashanah;" with brioche it's called "pain aux raisins"). Both make fabulous french toast. What's the difference?

Finally, I wondered if brioche was tricky to make, as the dough can be used for lots of other treats as well (sticky buns, brioche aux chocolat, etc.). Looking at cookbooks, they seemed to suggest that you start with a basic loaf of brioche. I wondered if I could do it.

It turns out that the answers to the first two points are related. Brioche is rich and decadent because it's loaded with eggs and butter. For 2 loaves of brioche, I used 6 eggs (including the one used for brushing  the crust) and 2.75 sticks of butter. Lesson one: think twice before ordering that grilled cheese.

The butter is also what separates it from challah. Challah also has a bit of fat, but vegetable oil is used so the bread remains pareve. (For the uninitiated, "pareve" is the word used to describe foods that contain neither milk nor meat. This matters for people who keep kosher and try to avoid mixing these two things.) Thus challah can be served with a meat dinner. What's less clear is why challah and brioche are so similar in the first place. Some Googling does not answer this question, but suggests that the term "challah" has historically referred to a range of breads used in Jewish rituals. The current egg bread is most common in the United States and a seemingly recent tradition. I'd be curious to know how egg bread became the standard, if anybody has a lead on this.

As for the third point, well, I had to try to make some brioche. I'm pleased to say that this went very well. I used Joanne Chang's recipe from Flour (are you sick of hearing her name yet? Her book is just so good...). The recipe calls for a blend of all-purpose and bread flour, some water, yeast, salt, sugar, and eggs. These get mixed together first. Once combined, you add the butter one piece at a time, mixing thoroughly so each piece gets incorporated. This is then mixed with the dough hook for about 15 minutes to allow the dough to come together. It really does change form in this process, as you'd expect.


The dough then sits in the fridge overnight, at which point it has the texture of slimy silly putty. I then divided it in half and pressed each half into a 9" square. The squares then got folded up into thirds (like a letter) and allowed to rise for most of the day in a warm place. These were then brushed with lightly beaten egg, and baked for about 40 minutes in a 350 degree oven.

The result is delicious. Rich and cake-like. I'll probably share it with friends and maybe toast it for breakfast a few times. And rest happily with the knowledge that I could easily make it again.